The Tarot Empress is a ruler, make no mistake about that, but a gentle one getting her will by peaceful means. She suggests and convinces, making her choices seem like the only reasonable ones. Quite often they are. If you follow the Tarot Empress you will have a pleasant ride, but if you oppose her it will all be uphill. While the Tarot Emperor is armed for battle and eager to engage in it, the Empress remains on her throne, relaxed, getting things done seemingly without any effort. If the Emperor is a warrior, she’s a politician. He might win the war, but the Tarot Empress controls the land during the peace that follows. The ways of the Tarot Empress are so soft and gentle that even her enemies feel blessed, while she strips them of their power and turns them into loyal subjects, whether they are aware of it or not. The Tarot Empress is what’s called the enlightened monarch, an expression used (and debated) for rulers, especially of the late 18th century, who had cultural and academic ambitions for their countries inspired by the ideas of the Enlightenment…
First Appearance Ducal courts of northern Italy (c. 1440)
First Publisher ○
Appearance List Sola Busca (1490s) — earliest surviving deck [Open Culture] [WaiteSmith.org]; Monde primitif… (Vol. 8: “Du Jeu des Tarots”) (1781) by Antoine Court de Gébelin; Manière de se récréer avec le jeu de cartes nommées Tarots (1783–1785) by Etteilla (Jean-Baptiste Alliette); Dogme et rituel de la haute magie (1856) by Éliphas Lévi; The Tarot: Its Occult Signification, Use in Fortune-Telling, and Method of Play (1888) by S. L. MacGregor Mathers; Le Tarot des Bohémiens (1889) by Papus (Gérard Encausse); Rider Waite Tarot (1909) by A. E. Waite and Pamela Colman Smith [WaiteSmith.org]; The Tarot of the Bohemians (1910) by A. P Morton [Internet Archive]; The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911, 1959) by A. E. Waite and Pamela Colman Smith; Le tarot des imagiers du moyen âge (1926) by Oswald Wirth; The Book of Thoth: A Short Essay on the Tarot of the Egyptians (1944) by Aleister Crowley; Le Tarot de Marseille (1949) by Paul Marteau; The Tarot Revealed (1960) by Eden Gray; Tarot Cards for Fun and Fortune Telling (1970) by Stuart R. Kaplan; The Encyclopedia of Tarot (Vol. 1) (1978) by Stuart R. Kaplan.
Sample Read The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911, 1959) by A. E. Waite and Pamela Colman Smith [Internet Archive]
Description The Tarot Empress is a ruler, make no mistake about that, but a gentle one getting her will by peaceful means. She suggests and convinces, making her choices seem like the only reasonable ones. Quite often they are. If you follow the Tarot Empress you will have a pleasant ride, but if you oppose her it will all be uphill. While the Tarot Emperor is armed for battle and eager to engage in it, the Empress remains on her throne, relaxed, getting things done seemingly without any effort. If the Emperor is a warrior, she’s a politician. He might win the war, but the Tarot Empress controls the land during the peace that follows. The ways of the Tarot Empress are so soft and gentle that even her enemies feel blessed, while she strips them of their power and turns them into loyal subjects, whether they are aware of it or not. The Tarot Empress is what’s called the enlightened monarch, an expression used (and debated) for rulers, especially of the late 18th century, who had cultural and academic ambitions for their countries inspired by the ideas of the Enlightenment…
